Pup Fiction

by Laurien Berenson

  “A body?” I gasped.

  Emily nodded. “He’d been shot.”

  “Do they know who it was?”

  “His name was Will Grace,” she told me in a small voice. “He was my ex-husband.”

  Chapter 11

  Emily’s first revelation came as a shock. Her second one left me speechless.

  Unexpectedly, her expression lightened. “What?” she inquired. “You finally have nothing to say?”

  I took a moment to recover. Then there was only one thing I could say. “Tell me everything.”

  “Early yesterday morning, I woke up to someone pounding on the door downstairs. When I looked out my window, there were two police cruisers outside.”

  “How did the police find the body?” I leaned forward and set my mug down on the trunk between us. “Did someone tell them it was there? What were they doing in the woods at that time of day?”

  “Slow down,” Emily said. “I can only deal with one question at a time. According to the officers, Will was found by one of the residents in the development next door.”

  When Graceland School was founded, the area had consisted of mostly open, rolling land. Over the years, however, houses had replaced grassy fields as a neighborhood grew up around it. More recently, a developer had purchased a sizable piece of property bordering the school land. He’d built an upscale residential community that had twenty-five homes, a clubhouse, and a swimming pool.

  “Apparently the guy had just gotten up,” Emily continued. “When he let his dog outside, it ran into the woods and started barking. He was afraid it would wake up his neighbors, so he followed it to see what was wrong. That’s when . . .” Emily stopped before finishing her thought.

  That was all right. I already knew what came next.

  “Why did the police come to you first?” I asked. “Was he found on your property?”

  ‘No.” She quickly shook her head. “Actually, it’s all state-owned land back there because the state controls the reservoir that’s on the other side of the trees. All the properties along this road back up to that same band of woods.”

  I thought about that. Then I repeated my question. “It sounds as though the police had options. What made them come here?”

  “They seemed to think I might know something,” Emily said in a small voice.

  “About your ex-husband’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they knew right away who he was?”

  “Will had his wallet on him. There was ID. They ran a background check, and this address came up.”

  I frowned. I’d known Emily for more than a decade, and I’d certainly never run into her ex. “It has to have been years since he lived here. If he ever did?”

  “No, he and I had a little apartment in Norwalk,” Emily told me. “I didn’t move in here until after the divorce. But Will wasn’t the most reliable person. He moved around a lot. And he wasn’t above fudging details if he thought it might gain him something. He must have used this as his address for some reason when he applied for his license.”

  The man sounded like a real prize. No wonder their relationship had soured. Emily might have divorced the man, but apparently she hadn’t entirely succeeded in getting rid of him.

  “So the police came to you,” I said. “What did they want to know?”

  “Everything.” She grimaced. “Where I’d been the previous night and what I’d been doing. What was the state of my relationship with Will? Did I have any reason to want to harm him?”

  “Did they question you before or after they told you about finding his body in the woods?”

  “Mostly before,” Emily replied. “In the beginning, I had no idea why the police were even here. There was a detective who kept glaring at me like he was trying to trip me up. Finally I told him he could either tell me what was going on or get out of my house.”

  “So he did,” I said quietly.

  Emily sighed. “I might have become a little hysterical at that point.” She looked to me for understanding. “But then the first thing I thought about was the camp. I couldn’t have parents driving in here to find the place swarming with police.”

  It was interesting that Emily’s first response to the news had been to protect the school. She was clearly more concerned about her livelihood than she was about her ex-husband’s murder.

  “Before he left, the detective said he might want to talk to me again. He even asked if I had an alibi.”

  “Did you?” I asked. That would certainly be useful.

  “Of course not. I was here, asleep. The only ones who can vouch for me are these guys.” Emily gazed around at the three spotted dogs.

  The puppies on the bed were looking more alert. They hopped down and came padding in to join us. Posey and Pansy, I decided. I was starting to be able to tell them apart.

  Pansy came over to sniff my legs and say hello. Posey joined her sister and Emily on the couch. Even now that they were up and moving around, the Dalmatians still seemed remarkably quiet to me. The previous times I’d seen them, the trio had been racing around and playing with each other.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Emily grumbled.

  “Like what?” My gaze lifted.

  “It was only a little Valium.”

  “You took Valium?” I had no idea why she was telling me that.

  “No, I gave it to them.” Emily indicated the three Dals. “I needed them to leave me alone so I could think.”

  Yikes. No wonder the dogs were so mellow.

  “Is that something you usually do?”

  “Of course not,” she said shortly. “Obviously, this was a special circumstance. Don’t worry, they’ll be back to normal soon.”

  I certainly hoped so. “So what happens next?”

  Emily pulled up her knees and tucked herself into a small ball on the couch. “I guess the police will investigate.”

  “And what do you do next?” I asked.

  “Reopen the camp.”

  “You already did that,” I pointed out. “Under the circumstances, are you sure it’s safe for the kids and counselors to be here?”

  “Absolutely. It’s safer than it ever was. There are police all over the neighborhood now. The detective said they’ll be around for a while.”

  “Is that Detective Sturgill, by any chance?”

  “Yes.” Emily peered at me curiously. “Do you know him?”

  “I do.” Sturgill and I had crossed paths several times in the past. We weren’t exactly friends, but we’d occasionally made pretty good allies.

  “Did you tell him about the other strange things that had been going on around here recently?”

  Emily feigned a look of surprise. As if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. I wasn’t buying it for a minute.

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because how would that make me look?”

  “Like a concerned citizen who wanted to do everything she could to aid the authorities in their investigation?”

  “Wrong,” she shot back. “It would make them think I must have had something to do with Will’s murder. And the police are already treating me like they think I’m a suspect.”

  Which, no doubt, they did.

  I pursed my lips in annoyance. Maybe Emily was still in shock. Or maybe she’d dosed herself with a sedative too. Because I knew she was an intelligent woman. And now she clearly wasn’t thinking straight.

  “That’s precisely why you don’t want to appear to be hiding anything. How do you think Detective Sturgill is going to react when he finds out?”

  She considered that for a minute. “Maybe he won’t find out.”

  Of course he would. This was a murder investigation. And if he didn’t uncover those other facts on his own, I’d be sure to tell him. Like a concerned citizen who wanted to do everything she could to aid the authorities in their investigation.

  “That’s not going to happen, Em.”

  She trailed
her fingers down Poppy’s silky back. “See? You think of stuff like that, and I don’t. You were right before when you said that I needed your help. I never should have turned you down.”

  It was a little late for her to be reconsidering now. I wondered if it had occurred to her that if she had taken my concerns more seriously, her ex-husband might still be alive. And if Emily expected me to run interference between her and Detective Sturgill, that was going to be a hard no.

  “What are you trying to say?” I really needed her to spell it out.

  “I want you to figure out who killed Will.” She frowned as if the answer had been perfectly obvious. “In fact, it’s a good thing you came by this morning. Now you can get right to work.”

  “When I offered my help before, things were different,” I pointed out. “Now someone has died, and the police are investigating a murder.”

  “Yes, and they’re also investigating me,” Emily snapped. “I need someone who’s going to be on my side. Someone who’s smart enough to figure things out. Like you.”

  I picked up my mug and finished my coffee, stalling for a few seconds while I considered the request. In the end, my answer had to be the same. Emily was my friend. Graceland was my sons’ school. Of course I would try to help if I could.

  “I suppose I could ask some questions,” I said.

  “Good.” She smiled.

  Having gotten what she wanted, Emily looked pleased. That wasn’t going to last.

  “Let’s start now,” I said. “With you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You don’t appear to be devastated by your ex-husband’s death.” More like inconvenienced, if I had to assign an emotional reaction to her current state of mind. “You said before that the two of you weren’t close.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “And yet you let him keep his truck here.”

  Emily shrugged. “That doesn’t mean anything. I had extra space to store it. Will didn’t.”

  “There has to have been a reason why Will was here the other night. Did he come to see you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re sure about that? This is your property. Something brought him here.”

  “It wasn’t me,” Emily said. “I hadn’t spoken to Will in months.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  She had that answer ready. I knew the police would have asked her the same question. “In April. When he showed up with the puppies.”

  I zeroed in on her phrasing. “So he just showed up then too? You weren’t expecting him to visit?”

  “No. Once Will and I were divorced, I was ready to move on.” Emily stopped and sighed. “Not that he believed that. Will was quite the charmer when he wanted to be. He was convinced everyone loved him. He popped in and out of people’s lives all the time. I never knew what he was going to do next.”

  “Like show up on your doorstep with three young Dalmatians?” I asked.

  “Precisely. That was so Will. He was always either down on his luck or riding high. When he was broke, he’d hit up everyone he knew for money. When he was flush, he’d buy people crazy presents.” Emily glanced at the puppies dozing around us. “Whether we wanted them or not.”

  “That sounds exhausting,” I said honestly.

  “Tell me about it,” she replied.

  “So you hadn’t had any communication with him at all since April?”

  Emily shook her head. “I didn’t even know where he was.”

  “How about before that? When was the last time you’d seen him?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “At least several years. Will came by to ask for a loan. I knew perfectly well that if I gave him something, I’d never see it again. Money flowed through his fingers like water. Anyway, it was a moot point because I didn’t have any cash to spare.”

  I stared at her. “So, having been out of contact for years, didn’t it seem odd to you when Will showed up out of the blue with a present?”

  “I can see how you might think that,” Emily admitted. “But you didn’t know Will. The guy was always working some kind of angle. I think he figured the puppies would soften me up. He told me that he missed me. And that he wanted us to give things another try.”

  I almost laughed at that. Emily looked similarly amused.

  “I’m guessing you weren’t tempted to take him back.”

  “Not even close.” She snorted. “I knew what the offer really meant. Will was broke again, and he was hoping I’d be enough of a sucker to put a roof over his head while he devised his next grand scheme. I shut that idea down in a hurry.”

  I pulled in a deep breath and slowly let it out. None of this made any sense. Nor did it shed any light on why Emily’s ex-husband had been killed, virtually in her backyard.

  Poppy lifted her head and took a look around. That prompted my next question.

  “These puppies are clearly purebreds,” I said.

  “I guess. So what?”

  “If Will was broke, where did he get the money to buy them?”

  “Knowing my ex, they could have come from anywhere,” Emily said without interest. “Maybe he picked them up at a dog pound.”

  That didn’t seem likely to me. Thanks to Walt Disney, Dalmatians were hugely popular. These pretty puppies weren’t the sort that would have been found languishing in a pound.

  Abruptly, Emily glanced at a clock on the wall. Her eyes widened. She nudged Poppy aside and jumped up off the couch.

  “Oh my God, is that the right time? I’ve got to go. I should be outside, reassuring parents that what happened won’t impact the camp in any way.”

  Emily definitely shouldn’t be talking to parents looking like that, I thought. Especially if she wanted them to be reassured by what she had to say. She’d obviously forgotten she was still wearing what looked like yesterday’s clothes.

  “Em,” I said gently. “You need to shower first.”

  “What?” She glanced down at her rumpled outfit as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh, right. Dammit.”

  Emily spun around and disappeared into the bedroom. I stood up and carried my mug to the sink. Then I headed for the door.

  I’d told Emily I would help. But I was already wondering whether that was a good idea. The events of the past thirty-six hours were puzzling from just about every angle. And there were gaps in Emily’s story big enough to drive a shiny red truck through.

  Emily was sure I was on her side, and yet I suspected she hadn’t told me the whole truth. She had to be assuming that I wouldn’t uncover anything that might cause my alliance to shift. But what if she was wrong about that?

  Chapter 12

  At the end of the Graceland driveway, I paused the car and looked both ways. A left turn would take me home. Turning right would send me in the direction of Aunt Peg’s house in Greenwich.

  I didn’t have to think very long about that. I turned right and took out my phone. Aunt Peg’s number was on speed dial.

  “Are you home?” I asked when she picked up.

  “Of course I’m at home,” she replied. “Where else would I be?”

  Knowing Aunt Peg, I could think of about a million other places. Age hadn’t slowed her down a bit. In fact, I was pretty sure it was causing her to gain momentum.

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  I ended the connection before she could ask any questions. Let her stew on that until I arrived.

  Aunt Peg lived in an old, restored farmhouse on a quiet lane in back-country Greenwich. Five acres of fenced land surrounded the house, and at one time there had been a kennel out back. That building was gone now, and her five remaining Standard Poodles lived in the house with her.

  All of Aunt Peg’s Poodles were black. They were also all interrelated with Sam’s and my dogs. So every time I arrived at Aunt Peg’s house, I was greeted by a bevy of familiar-looking faces.

  Four Standard Poodles came cascading down the f
ront steps as I got out of the Volvo. The fifth dog, thirteen-year-old Beau, remained in the open doorway at Aunt Peg’s side. His days of running up and down stairs for fun were behind him. Beau preferred to stand on his dignity and wait for visitors to come to him.

  I was happy to oblige the older dog. Years earlier, Beau’s disappearance had persuaded Aunt Peg and me to heal a long-standing family rift. We’d worked together to track the dog down and bring him home. Nothing about my life had been the same since.

  Now I leaned down to Beau’s level and cupped his gray muzzle in my hands. “How are you, old man? Are you feeling good today?”

  Beau’s tail wagged slowly back and forth. I took that as a yes.

  Faith’s sister, Hope, came skidding past me. Eve’s brother, Zeke, was right behind her. The two of them went flying into the house. Willow, carrying her second litter, followed that pair more sedately. Coral was on her dam’s heels.

  I stood back up, ready to follow them inside. Aunt Peg was blocking my way. Her hands were propped on her hips.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Yesterday morning, a man’s body was found in the woods near Laurel Reservoir,” I told her.

  “I know that.” Her eyes narrowed. Obviously she’d expected something better. “I heard about it on the news.”

  “Graceland School backs up to those woods.”

  Now she looked interested. “Nobody mentioned that.”

  “There’s more. The dead man was Emily Grace’s ex-husband.”

  Aunt Peg’s brow lifted. I finally had her full attention.

  “You’d better come inside,” she said. Aunt Peg quickly counted canine noses, then shut the front door behind us.

  The Poodles and I automatically headed toward the kitchen. That was where Aunt Peg usually hosted visitors. Her sweet tooth was legendary, and frequent guests knew they could count on two things: first, that Aunt Peg would expect them to be both entertaining and enlightening, and second, that she would ply them with sugar-laden calories until they fulfilled those duties.

  But hey, no pressure.

  “I have pie.” Aunt Peg glanced at her watch. “It’s early, but I’m game if you are.”